Epilogue: Dawn
by openwindows
Summary: An alternaive epilogue to the seventh book. Dawn had broken.


Note: This is an alternative epilogue to the seventh book.

Dawn. Many a poet has written of the magical, beautiful instant in which the sun touches the edge of the earth with its long thin fingers, to great a new morning.

But others care little for the morning, or indeed for the sun. The man who stood in a solitary silence before a large stone obelisk seemed to be such a one. He seemed unmoving, as still as the stone from which the obelisk was cut.

If one were to stand before the obelisk as he did, one would see the many figures carved into its face. Figures which seemed pulled out of a fairytale. Wizards, dueling one another, charging centaurs, spiders larger then men, giants hurling rocks and lighting trees over their heads, dark cloaked figures with spindly long fingers like those of a skeleton, fairies, pixies, witches, odd little elf like creatures dressed in pillowcases and odd socks, gigantic serpents, skeleton horses, unicorns, werewolves, stags, rats, huge dogs and magnificent dragons.

The scenes in which they were placed were just as magical. A large castle dominated the majority of the scenes, but there was also a hedgerow maze, a magnificent forest, dark caves, and a graveyard so well depicted that any who gazed upon it shuddered as if they were there.

In all these many scenes that curled around the obelisk much like a giant snake, the figures fought against one another. If one studied these depictions, one would notice that in all of these scenes was a boy, who grew taller and taller as the scenes progressed, with constant windswept hair, glasses, and a lightning bolt in his forehead.

Much like the man who now stood before it, ignoring the beauty of the sunrise, wallowing in the misery and death that the images showed.

He moved, and reached out the touch some of the figures, almost reverently. A young couple who held a baby in their arms, as their home exploded around them, the man valiantly fighting off a cloaked wizard. A large shaggy dog swimming across a sea, and a man shabbily clad with long hair, riding on a hippogrif across a starry sky. A creature, halfman-halfwolf, howling at the moon, covered in scars, with large sorrowful eyes, surrounded by a stag a rat and a dog. An elderly wizard, with a long beard, and eyes that seemed to twinkle with knowledge, even in the face of the cold stone.

"Harry?"

The man looked up startled, not expecting the silence to be broken. His instant reaction was to reach into his pocket from which he with practiced ease withdrew a wand. Recognition then flashed across his face, and he pocketed the wand once more.

The one who had spoken, a young woman with long red hair and soft brown eyes, approached him quietly, and stood beside him.

She too reached out and touched some of the figures, though those she touched were different. A young man who stood beside an identical figure, identical smiles on their faces as they rode on brooms high above an angry witches head. A tall woman, with short spiky hair, standing beside another depiction of a wolfman, a baby in her arms, though she held a wand in one hand, warding off wizards. A man being attacked by a wolf in a tower, his face scarred, his hand held by a beautiful girl with long hair and elf like features. Then she softly stroked the words inscribed at the base of the obelisk.

"To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. - Albus Dumbledore"

.

"Harry?" She said again. He looked at her.

His eyes looked a million years old, wise, experienced, tortured. They hardly seemed the eyes of a young man with a pretty girl beside him.

She took his hand, and together the pair of them turned away from the monument. Just then loud shouting and shrieks of laughter broke the silence, and two boys broke out of the trees behind them, tumbling and play-fighting.

"James Sirius and Albus Severus Potter, stop that this instant!"

The red-haired girl, their mother, let go of the young man's hand and went to admonish the two boys who listened dutifully for five minutes before they were once again loudly rough-housing through the grass. The man smiled, watching his two sons. In the morning light his young family seemed the most beautiful thing in the world.

He glanced back at the monument behind them. A reminder of the many friends and loved ones who had died. Forever they would give some protection to the family of Harry James Potter. Because they had loved no one more deeply then this savior of theirs.

Another boy came out of the trees. Older then the other two, with deep wise golden eyes. While the other boys rough and tumbled, he silently turned his eyes to the obelisk, much as Harry had.

Harry strode to his side, and wrapping an arm around the young boys shoulder, led him over to the rest of their family.

"You know Teddy, a very intelligent man once told me that the dead we love never truly leave us. That my father was alive in me. Your father is alive in you as well Teddy." Harry said quietly.

Teddy smiled quietly, as he looked up at his godfather. In an unnerving moment, his whole appearance changed. Harry was used to the frequent metamorphosis changes of his godson. Before him stood now a younger version of Remus Lupin.

A little girl followed them out of the trees, and ran up to her father on short chubby legs, begging to be picked up. Her eyes were already a light green, and she had a mop of curly ginger hair.

"Daddy, daddy spin me!" she begged, and Harry easily gave in, spinning his youngest children round in circles while she shrieked with laughter.

A new dawn had broken. Spring had come.


End file.
